The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-03-09

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and work out this restless energy.
A young school mistress from Vir-
ginia told me this. She went to teach
in Southwestern Virginia. The first
day she looked at the school-house, her
heart sank. 1t was log cabin, without
any floor; no fence around it at all.
The first morning she got there, she saw
about thirty-six children standing
around afraid to go into the school for
fear of the rats that swarmed about 1t.
So she said, s'we must have an assistant
in that school You children go home
and bring cat tomorrow" The next
day each boy and girl brought cat,
and out of the thirty-six good one was
chosen, and he speedily made way with
the rats Next, she said "YOu boys go
to work and make floor; and girls, the
next time you come bring pieces of
cloth and pictures to fix up the school" !"
Of course every girl brought her arms
full up to her chin with all the cloth
and pictures she could bring, and the
boys went to work and made .he floor.
Then she said, boys, go out in the
woods and get some poles to make a
fence; and girls, bring some flowers to
make the place pretty" The girls
brought the flowers, and in a short time
this place had become changed, per-
feet little garden; where vines, covered
with flowers, adorned the outside of the
school, and there was a comfortable in
terror
Now all good things have change;
sometimes people think woman cannot
do anything-must have a man to teach
that school-so they engaged a man,
theological student Now, L have been
q theological student myself, have been
a minister for some thirty years, but
the qualification for minister Is that
he should be creator, not destroyer,
and this one certainly did not under
stand it. Now this theological student
came About the first thing, the cat
got under his feet, and he kicked 1t and
killed it, so the rats swarmed In, soon
reducing the interior to Its original
state. Then when it got cold, and there
was no wood, he said, 'You boys cut up
that fence" Consequently, as there
was no fence, the cattle ate up the vines.
In three weeks he had reduced the
place to its original barbarlsm. Just as
soon as the children saw it going to
pieces, they helped all they could to de-
stroy it, for children will be creators or
destroyers.
There are ways in which industrial
work can be carried on in our whole
system of education. In some States of
the Union, industrial drawing has been
introduced into the free schools. Fifty
years ago they established schools to
train teachers for the free schools in the
State OF Massachusetts,, and wished to
have industrial drawing taught. We
were an industrial State, and had to re-
ly upon foreign country, England or
Germany, if we wanted designers. Our
factories were filled with people from
England or Germany, consequently now
we have banished foreign designers, and
get them from our own State. The
School of Designers at Chelsea took the
prize at the Worlds Exposition, and
every design was made at Chelsea.
We must develop skilled labor, and
drawing is the greatest thing by which
we can do it, and so we are increasing
our wealth and enabling ourselves to
take foreign goods and give back domes-
tic ones.
Another thing. Our great States up
North are filled with people coming
from the poverty-stricken parts of Eu-
rope. Boys and girls come to our
schools, whose parents know very little
about house-k keeping, living in tenement
houses. and knowing very little about
our modern ways. Therefore we are in
Producing plain sewing into the schools;
teach them how to use sewing machines.
If YOU had been in the city of Boston
and seen the work done by these boys
and girls, making their own clothes and
learning other things. We are intro
ducing cooking, also, to teach girls how
to cook. We have many girls who take
up several hours a day, taking lessons
in cooking and learning how to keep
house economically, learning how to
handle everything that goes In house.
Then we have carpenterlng Tor the
bows. Take any one school where any
man can learn a special trade-be 8
machinest, architect, or anything else I;
where women are admitted; for most
are for co-education; arrangements are
made where women can learn house
keeping considered in an artistic light ;
where respectable women can learn to
get respectable living, and connect the
ornamental with the useful.
Now what say is this: this State of
Mississippi has gone so far ahead of the
South, by establishing an institution OF
this kind-an institution that will give
good, solid education, give training to
teach the natural method of in
struction. Your College Is on the
right track. OF course it does not
achieve what your most enthusiastic
friends demand, but doing certainly
more than any other in these sixteen
Southern States. Now, it seems to me
that to make this College a grand sue
cess and to do successful work for
the Southern States, there are four
things to be done, each necessary to
bring out success. In the first place,
remember that you must found your
education on solid basis of good En-
glish instruction. Very many OF you
girls have come from portions of the
country where you have had imperfect
| advantages. You find you do not know
as much as you thought you did. Make
up your mind to begin upon good
| foundation for study. Get down upon
hard pan. If you cannot spell, learn
spelling, learn grammar, learn arithme-
/ tic-do it. Help these faithful teachers
and your President, who wants you te
| do this work And always begin on the
foundation of good English educa
ton.
Then as to energetic Normal work
that is another thing. You need q
| thorough organization of Normal train
ing with the practice of teaching. The
people of this city could be persuaded
to give you a hundred children to teach
and every young woman who teache:
here. could be shown the natural meth
DDS of instruction, and trained for teach
ing all over the country.
Another thing see: you need a thor
ough school of scientific house keeping
You are beginning that work earnestly
already, but you should have it so tha
no girl could get a certificate OF ed
ucation, unlels she can actually work
keep house or cook a plain me2l-keeI
house as she ought to, to be a goot
young mans wife. No man in the Stat,
would marry q woman who knows moth
ling about scientific housekeeping.
. woman who lives in palace should un
derstand housekeeping. 1t is cominl
, that the men of the country will be ricl
, men. Just as soon as that time comes
they will put you in the modern house
J be sure you know what to do in it. l
miserable creature is 8 young woman
, married to a COED young man and livinl
| in one of these modern houses, who SIT
down and lets the house go to ruin, an
I let lot of semi-savages do what the
will with that house. Be sure you kno'
! what to do with it, when you go In tha
! house, and by that you will glorify VIC
: manhood.
Then ie seems in your artistic worl
! az said before, you are on the righ
! track. Remember, OF course, that Ii